


The Photograph

by IsolationShepherd



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Emotions, F/M, Feels, Grief, Hope, Kabby, Loss, Lots and lots of feels, Love, Memories, New Planet, Pain, Reminiscing, all the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 10:13:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17384573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsolationShepherd/pseuds/IsolationShepherd
Summary: In her house on the new planet, Abby finds an old photograph, and it stirs up a lot of memories.





	The Photograph

Abby sits on her bedroom floor, long legs stretched out in front of her, documents scattered between them. There are clothes piled on the bed, a tottering tower of books to her right, a child’s toy poking out from beneath the dressing table. Everywhere there are boxes, some full, most empty. She takes a deep breath. It’s amazing how much a person can accumulate in ten years. She’s spent most of her life with little to nothing in terms of possessions. They had endlessly recycled clothes on the Ark, and it was the same in the bunker. Only a few paper books had existed when she was young, mainly for the elite. She’d been lucky enough to have one, not that she was ever the elite. Gray’s Anatomy. The Doctor’s Bible. She’d managed to take it to Earth with her, but it had been lost a long time ago, burned to ashes, like everything else she’d ever owned. They didn’t have a copy of Gray’s here, but that didn’t matter; it was all in her memory.

Here on Sanctum there are more books than she could have imagined existed. A perfect climate for tree growth, a hard-working population. There was little they hadn’t been able to achieve. It was the closest to life on the original Earth they had ever experienced. Back on the Ark, when Marcus had dreamt of the Earth it was empty, but Abby had always harboured fantasies about the flowers secretly blooming, the animals grazing them, thriving. She understood the resilience of life, the biological imperative that conquered even the harshest conditions. She’d never imagined a place like Sanctum, however. None of them had.

She sifts through the documents, the reams of paperwork one accumulates over a decade as a citizen. Registration, residency, and parking notices, her hospital credentials, Alexa’s birth certificate, and other, more personal papers. She runs her finger over Marcus’s name on one of them, and her heart constricts. Memories.

She sighs, reaches behind her and pulls one of the boxes forward. She gathers up the papers she’s checked, shuffles them into a neat bundle and places them in the box. She doesn’t want to be doing this, is finding it hard to pack up her things, for this house holds a lot of memories, good and bad, and she’s not ready to leave it behind. It’s too big now, though, too empty. Time to go.

She stretches forward, gathers the next lot of papers to her, sifts through them. It’s mostly work-related; information on the different strains of diseases she’s encountered here, her notes from the courses she had to take to prove her knowledge and experience for a position as Chief Medical Officer in the city hospital. Amongst the papers are some photos. Madi’s first day of school, Clarke standing beside her, a broad grin on her face, her arm resting proudly around her daughter. Abby smiles. That was a good day. There are pictures Abby has taken of the lake, their house seeming to hover over it as it projects into the water, its reflections stretching out in opposite directions beneath the rising suns. Madi ready for her first date with Petra, both girls smiling shyly into the camera as Clarke cajoled them into posing for her. She shuffles through the pictures, smiling at each memory. Then there’s a photo that makes her heart stop. Shivers run up her arms and down her legs, and her chest tightens, making it hard to breathe. It’s of her and Marcus, taken a long, long, long time ago.

She holds it delicately between shaking fingers. It’s on paper, the ordinary stuff not the photographic paper the previous ones were printed on. The paper is thin now, fragile. There are cracks where it has been folded and unfolded many times. It’s yellow-brown with age, pitted, scarred. There’s a blurred fingerprint that looks like it was made in blood; she’d like to say it’s probably just age, but it’s more than likely to be blood from one disaster or another. Their images are faded, but still unmistakable. They’re standing so close together there’s barely a gap between their bodies. Marcus’s head is bowed, Abby is looking up at him, their foreheads pressed together. Her hand is on his shoulder, his hand is grasping her elbow. They look like they’re in love, which they were. The only thing was they hadn’t admitted it to each other yet. Not in words at least. Not directly.

It’s amazing that there is a photo of them back then, back when Arkadia was their home. Unbelievable. There was no one in the room with them; Abby didn’t even know they were being recorded, but they were. Security cameras had been placed there unbeknownst to her or Marcus, so Pike could monitor their conversation, gather more evidence to justify Marcus’s death sentence, not that he needed it. Dictators don’t need proof, just power, authority. Raven had found the footage when she was rebooting the systems after Alie and printed a still for Abby. She’d kept it ever since, folded in her pocket, transferred from jacket to jacket, surviving an apocalypse, an obliterated earth, the leaving of it for a new planet. She tried to remember when she’d stopped carrying it with her, when it became just another piece of paper in a house full. When it became too painful to look at, perhaps, too full of memories.

She brings the paper closer to her face, inhaling its musty scent, like the ashes of an old fire, long cold, but still smoky. She presses it gently to her lips, kissing the outline of Marcus’s proud nose, the top of his head, remembering the feel of his hair between her fingers when she’d stroked it, feathery and warm. Lush was the word for Marcus Kane’s hair. Sumptuous. Luxurious. Glorious. How many times had she run her fingers through it since then? Hundreds? Thousands probably. That was her first time. She’d thought about it before that, how it would feel to bury her hands in it, to grasp its thick strands, let them slide between her fingers, even before she had feelings for him. It was that kind of hair. She feels a tear well in her eye and moves the picture away before the tear can drip and stain the paper.

What you couldn’t see in the picture of course were Marcus’s shackles, the handcuffs around his wrists and feet, the chains between them. When she’d watched him shuffle towards her she’d felt so many conflicted emotions she’d thought her heart would burst, unable to contain them. Sadness. Grief. Pain. Guilt. Confusion. Love. He had no idea, she could see it in his eyes. Even her bold kiss to his cheek in the lab hadn’t clued him in. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel the same; it was just that he couldn’t believe she would feel about him the way he felt about her. Not after everything. He’d told her that later, when they were in Polis, after they’d made love for the second time, or was it third? Third. Definitely. When they were more comfortable with each other.

She strokes the dark area that was his face, his features indistinguishable, except for that nose, and a hint of moustache. She’d know that profile anywhere, even if she was blind she would know it was him from the slight crook in his long nose, the softness of his cheeks, his thin, scarred lips, his straggly beard that sometimes tickled, sometimes itched, and sometimes brought a lot of pleasure. Marcus’s beard. The outward symbol of his inner journey. She’d watched him change from back-straight, uptight rule-stickler with short, neatly-gelled hair and smooth face, to stubbled, conflicted leader and bearded rebel. He was another person after that, of course, but she didn’t like to remember those days, not the end at any rate.

An intense, complicated love they had. You were lucky to experience love once in a lifetime, never mind twice. It was different with Marcus to Jake. Call it age, experience, circumstance, or their dark, desperate lives, but it was deeper, stronger, more passionate, the kind of love that infuses every cell of your body so that it is one with you. He is one with you, and always will be, no matter what happens. It’s painful at times, that kind of love. When you’re each other’s everything it’s easy to hurt the other one deeply because you know their weaknesses, the parts that are soft and quick to bruise, but when you hurt someone who is a part of you, you succeed in hurting yourself as well. She’d like to say they’d hurt each other, but that wasn’t true, not after they’d got together. She was the one who’d hurt him, time after time, punching him in the gut, the chest, the heart, harder and harder, her words as bruising as blows from a fist, forcing him to desperate measures. Look where that had got them. He’d forgiven her, but at a terrible cost.

Abby presses the photo to her breast. That night, when he’d shuffled in and her heart had nearly burst with the hopelessness of their plight, that night changed everything. Her feelings for him had grown complicated since he returned from captivity. He was different. Fired-up and enthusiastic, yet with a calmness that radiated, as though he’d made peace with himself, or was trying. They’d still fought, still argued, but he smiled more, laughed and joked, and they talked. Properly. Listening to each other at long last. It was attractive, exciting, energising, and she’d found herself looking forward to seeing him, spending time with him, working with him.

Two strong individuals, each as stubborn as the other. It never should have worked; they should never have become a team, but they had. You have to open yourself up to the other person if you’re to have a successful relationship of any kind, and Marcus had always been a closed book. A team player in the wider sense working to ensure their shared future, but not on a smaller scale, not able to work intimately in small groups or one on one. Too proud, too closed-off, too full of himself, if she were honest. He was brought low after the culling, but he hadn’t let it sink him. Nearly, as the scar on his arm proved, but not quite. Instead he’d risen, a changed man, determined to prove himself to her and to everyone, as a man of integrity, faith and determination. He’d let her in, showed her his darkness, and she had shown him hers, and that’s how two people who once loathed each other became a team, a force to be reckoned with. Stronger together. Nothing could break them, or so she’d thought.

Back to the photo and she can remember that moment so clearly, even after all these years, after everything they’d been through. He’d only been concerned for her, not wanting her to risk herself for him, needing her to be the light, thinking of their people even at the end. That’s what he’d always done, in different ways. His acceptance of his fate had been her undoing, and she’d finally admitted, though not in so many words, that she loved him. She could pinpoint the moment when he’d realised what she meant when she said she couldn’t do this again, and she doesn’t know to this day if it had given him comfort or broke his heart. To realise you are loved for perhaps the first time in your life when there’s no time to do anything about it. Was she cruel to do that to him? She’d never had the nerve to ask him. It wasn’t planned. She’d gone there to boost his spirit, to let him know she would get him out of this, but he was already resigned, and she couldn’t let him go to his death without knowing. Selfish? Yes. Would she change things if she could? No.

When she had broken him out he’d kissed her, and she knew he felt the same, and that sustained her through everything that happened afterwards. Even through Alie, through the pain she inflicted on him, through her own horror when she realised what she’d done to everyone she loved, to Clarke, to Raven, to Marcus, that love gave her hope, kept her going. And as she’d told Jaha long ago, although the words had been for a lurking Councillor Kane’s benefit, hope is everything.

It was all a long time ago, one hundred and forty earth years, sixteen human years, but the photo has brought her right back to that moment. It makes her think about the Earth, and all she’s lost, all the things that could have been but never were. Happy memories, but painful, touched as they are by grief and loss. The tears are flowing now as she grips the flimsy paper harder than she probably should, adding a new crease, her own mark, to the others from times long gone by.

She’s disappeared into the past, lost in her memories, when she hears a voice in the distance, growing louder as it approaches.

“Have you finished the packing yet? Oh, Abby!”

Abby turns to see an exasperated Marcus enter their bedroom. He stands with his hands on his hips as he surveys the chaos, shaking his head. She looks at him. It’s sixteen years since the photo was taken and he’ll be sixty soon. Time has been kind to him. His beard is more white than black now, his hair salt-streaked and a little thinner, though not much. There’s still plenty to run her fingers through. His skin is burned a deep olive brown from working out in the suns, and when she’s close to his face, when she’s kissing him and caressing him, she can see delicate lines like the faint traces of an old braided river in a desert. The scar on his neck is faded but still a deep purple, still jagged and knotted because she didn’t have the time or the equipment to be neat when she sewed him back together. But he’s still tall and slim, still broad-chested and strong. More handsome, to her eyes, than ever. His brown eyes darken with concern when he sees her face, the tears wetting her cheeks.

“What’s the matter?” he says, and he gets on his knees beside her. Abby weeps, because she’s still in the past, still thinking about how close she came to losing him. Marcus pulls her into a hug. “Hey. Come on. It’s not that boring a task is it? You don’t have to cry over it.” He laughs at his own joke and pulls her closer. Abby wraps her arms around him and squeezes him tight.

“I love you,” she says, and she sobs again.

“I should hope you do,” he replies, and he hugs her again before releasing her so he can look at her face. “What’s brought this on?”

She shows him the photograph and he takes it, turns it over in his hands, runs his fingers over their image as she had done. He smiles. “Where did you get this?”

“Raven found the footage a long time ago and made it for me.”

“You never told me.”

“I know. It was. . . it was too personal, a precious memory, but difficult. I don’t know; I can’t explain it.”

He runs his thumb across her cheek, brushing a tear away. “I understand.” He looks down at the photograph, a soft smile lighting up his face. “I never realised how intimate we were then.”

“You didn’t know how I felt.”

“Not until that moment.” He looks up, rests his fingers on her cheek, draws her to him for a kiss. Abby’s heart rate increases, not just because of the kiss, but because she wants to ask him something, thinks now is the right time, but she’s nervous, because she thinks she knows what he will say, and it will be painful to hear.

She grabs a tissue, blows her nose. She’s delaying it, wasting time. “Can I ask you something?” she says at last, and he nods without looking at her, still engrossed in the photo.

“Of course you can.”

Abby breathes in deeply, lets it out slowly. The noise makes Marcus look up at her, his brow creasing as he wonders what she’s going to say.

“I remember you telling me you didn’t realise how I felt about you, even after I kissed your cheek.”

“I didn’t think you’d ever feel that way about me. Why would you? I’d done nothing but hurt you.”

“I know. I remember. But then in this moment, in the photo, you realised?”

“It hit home, yes.” He laughs softly.

“How did that make you feel?” She fiddles with the hem of her shirt, not looking at him.

“What do you mean?”

“How did it make you feel, when you realised, that I loved you?” She looks up now, staring into his warm brown eyes. “Tell me the truth.”

“I.” Marcus frowns, looks down at the photo, and back at Abby. “I was confused at first, but happy.”

“Were you?”

He nods. “Yes.”

Abby shakes her head. “You’re not being honest.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me the truth, how it felt to have someone tell you they love you when you’re about to die.” Her words come out stronger than she intended. He’s being obtuse as always, not getting the deeper meaning, or not wanting to.

He looks up and to the left, strokes his beard as he slips back into his own memory of that time. It takes a minute, but then he shuffles so he’s sitting opposite her, takes her hands in his.

“I felt a lot of things all at once. I was confused at first, not sure if you were saying what I thought you were saying. You know what I’m like.” He rolls his eyes and looks at her sheepishly.

Abby grins “Yes.”

“I was happy, so happy, that you felt like that. A feeling of joy came over me, and peace. But then. . . you want me to be honest?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Then it felt like I’d been punched, because I realised that me dying was going to hurt you, and you’d been hurt so much already. I didn’t want to be responsible for that.”

Abby’s heart tightens like it did back then, the same emotions coursing through her. She had been so selfish telling him, and all he was thinking about was her. Marcus squeezed her hands tighter as he watched her face.

“I hadn’t thought up until then about the consequences of me not being around,” he continued. “I mean when I was in the lock-up I’d thought about the burden that was going to fall on you as the one left to lead our people, but I hadn’t thought about it on a personal level. I figured you’d miss my support, and it was a lot for you to deal with alone and I felt bad about that. I didn’t realise I’d leave love behind.”

Abby starts crying again. It’s so stupid because they’re still here. He didn’t die then, or a dozen times since when he could have. There’s nothing to be upset about and yet she can’t stop weeping. It’s not hormones, because she said goodbye to them a few years ago. It’s the move, probably, leaving their first proper home together, where they’d been a happy family. It had made her emotional and finding the photo had tipped her over the edge.

“Abby, my love. Don’t cry. It’s a long time ago.” He reaches up again to stroke her face, smiling at her tenderly.

“I don’t mean to. I always knew I’d caused you pain in that moment. I was so desperate, and I wanted you to know how I felt, and I didn’t consider the consequences for you. It was cruel.”

Marcus shakes his head. “Have you kept this burden inside all this time? I thought we told each other everything.”

“We do. It hasn’t been a burden really. Not all the time. Seeing the photo brought it back.”

“Yes. They do that, don’t they?” He sighs. “Listen. In the moment all I could think about was you, and it was hard to leave you, and knowing this made it harder yes, so I pushed you away a little, tried to create some distance. I thought that would help. I’m an idiot, as you know.” He laughs, and brings one of Abby’s hands to his lips, kisses it. “When I got back to my cell I didn’t want to think about it too much because it did hurt. It felt like a loss, and I grieved for us I think, for what we could have had, but then I pushed it to the back of my mind because it helped me cope and there were other things to do.”

“That’s what I was worried about, that you would feel the wasted time, that it was too late.”

“It was too late, and therefore nothing to be done about it. I didn’t walk to my fate regretting it, Abby. If anything, it made me feel warm and loved and I don’t think I’d ever felt that before. A man could go to his death never knowing what it meant to be loved, but that man wasn’t me. I knew. I had you, and it comforted me.”

Abby pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, rubbed the tears away. “I don’t deserve you.”

Marcus laughs. “We both know it’s the other way around.”

“No,” replies Abby with a tearful smile.

Marcus shrugs. “Sometimes I think it’s been harder to be happy, to live the life we have here, because I’m always waiting for something to take it away. I have a lot to lose. Back then I had nothing, and you gave me something precious, and I would never change how it happened even if I lived a thousand lifetimes over and over.”

“I wouldn’t change it either.”

“No?”

Abby shakes her head. “No. If you hadn’t been about to die, and I hadn’t thought I had nothing to lose, I might never have told you how I felt.”

“You think you could have resisted this body for the rest of your life, do you?” Marcus gestures to himself, poses in a silly provocative way, and Abby laughs so hard her shoulders heave.

“I’d like to say yes, but no. Definitely not.” They kiss again, and then Marcus takes the photo and looks at it one more time.

“We should put this in a frame in the new house,” he says.

“That would be nice.”

“What other memories do you have hidden in here?” Marcus reaches into the box, pulls out the sheaf of papers she’d placed in there earlier. He smiles as he finds a particular document, one she’d looked at earlier herself. He brings it out, peruses it. “Here’s something we wouldn’t have if you hadn’t told me, Mrs Kane.”

He waves their marriage certificate at her and Abby takes it from him, looks at it again, at their signatures and the date. Five years ago, just after Clarke gave birth to Alexa. They’d thought it would formalise their family for some reason. “Mrs Kane! That’s your mom.”

“I sincerely hope I’m not married to my mom, although sometimes…”

Abby grabs Alexa’s stuffed animal from beneath the bed and throws it at Marcus. “I am not your mother.”

“And I am eternally grateful.”

“She was the only other woman to put up with you, though, so I guess we have something in common.”

Marcus grins. “Alexa loves me.”

“She’s five. She knows no better.”

Marcus fingers the stuffed toy, strokes its soft fur. “I miss them.”

“I know. Me too, but they need a place of their own.” Abby takes the papers from him, returns them to the box, places the photo carefully on top. “There’s an upside though.”

Marcus raises his eyebrows at her. “Is there?”

“We don’t have to worry about prying eyes anymore.” She gets on her knees and shuffles forward, puts her fingers in his glorious hair and presses him to her. They kiss passionately, and she pushes Marcus to the floor, straddles him. He wrestles with her playfully, but she fights back, pins his hands to the floor beside his head. “If I’d never told you how I felt we wouldn’t have this.”

“I would definitely miss this.” He thrusts his hips towards her, lets her know how she’s making him feel.

Abby moans. “So would I.” She pushes up his t-shirt, rains kisses across his torso, over his scar, the one that nearly did kill him. She lingers there, then moves lower.

Marcus sighs with pleasure. “The things you’ll do to get out of packing up this room.”

They both laugh.

 

THE END

 


End file.
